Michael Buble likes to dream big, but he has started small in the world of hockey ownership.

The Grammy award-winning songmeister was introduced Thursday as a minority owner of the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants, joining Pat Quinn and Gordie Howe in that capacity under main man Ron Toigo.

Buble is a self-described hockey nut and he’s proud of the fact he’s beaten BlackBerry billionaire Jim Balsillie into an ownership position.

“I can’t believe it’s happened,” said Buble, whose entertaining media scrum rivalled the best of Brian Burke. “I talked to Jim Balsillie a couple of days ago and it’s probably the first and only time he’ll be jealous of me.”

His real aim in life, however, is to own the National Hockey League Canucks.

“My goal, and it might be a ridiculously silly goal, is that I would love to own the Canucks one day as well,” continued the 33-year-old crooner from Burnaby. “I have a lot of work to do but, you know, you dream, right? You set ’em high and if you don’t make it, you still land pretty close to where you want. This is a huge start for me.”

His love affair with the game began in his living room and extended to the Pacific Coliseum, the first home of the Canucks and now home to the 25-2-0-3 Giants juggernaut.

“If you ask my dad and my mom, my hockey career started in our house and garage where I ruined every wall because I put hockey pucks through them,” Buble said, eyes twinkling. “I played as a kid and I think my hands were pretty good but my skating was atrocious. I was a forward and I didn’t backcheck.

“I watched Pavel Bure and I figured if he can wait at the [red] line, I can do that, too. But apparently I wasn’t as fast as Pavel.”

Buble and his dad had Canuck season tickets during the 1980s when the team wore garish Halloween uniforms that were universally derided everywhere but in little Michael’s mind.

“I went to every single home game as a kid and I remember those beautiful yellow jerseys that everyone thought were so ugly,” he said. “I remember I wanted to be Gary Lupul, I wanted to be Patrik Sundstrom and Ivan Hlinka. I used to think that being named Michael Buble was pretty cool because I was close to being called Jiri Bubla.”

He says he often debates his British and American pals over the relative merits of soccer and the NFL and can’t understand what they see in those sports.

“I’m yelled at by all my British friends who tell me their football is a real sport and my American friends that their kind of football is a real sport but I don’t know,” Buble said. “Hockey to me is the fastest, most beautiful, intricate game there is. I love it. I love playing it, I love watching it, I eat it, I drink it.

“A couple of nights ago, me and a few friends were having a few beers and they asked me what I couldn’t live without and when I thought about it, sadly, I think I could live without music but I don’t think I could live without hockey. I think it’s the greatest game on Earth.”

Buble says his intention is to be a hands-off owner and that he has no plans to diagram power-play alignments for head coach Don Hay. Unless, of course, Hay plans to tell him which songs to sing on his next CD.

“My plans are just to watch these boys,” he explained. “If I’m at home I’ll show up at the games and, if I’m on tour, I’ll watch them on TV or the computer. I think they’ve created an amazing culture of winning from ownership to management to the coaching staff and players. Their drafting, their trading, I mean everything they’ve done has been right on.”

Toigo and Buble have known one another for years. They’ve fished and golfed together and whenever the subject of hockey ownership arose, Buble told Toigo of his grand plan.

“He always says he’s going to buy the Canucks one day,” Toigo noted. “I often get people approaching me about buying into the Giants and he said, ‘If you’re doing that, let me know.’ So it just kind of evolved over time. There wasn’t any specific thing where he showed up one day with an offer.”

Toigo, by the way, has seen Buble play shinny and offers this scouting report.

“He is an offensive specialist,” Toigo chuckled. “Whenever you play shinny with him, he’s always up at the other team’s goal waiting for a pass. He’s a good hockey player but he is a seagull.”

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New Giants co-owner Buble ‘eats, drinks’ hockey

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